It is known that significant trauma or cold exposure to a person often induces hypothermia (health threatening reduction of core body temperature), which can compound medical consequences. Thus, it is desirable to provide additional heat in addition to normal body-generated heat, e.g., apply warming covers to the injured person.
It is preferred that the covers are provided with electric or other active heating to enhance the warming properties of the covers. However, known warming covers as applied to an injured person have problems. For example, skin should not be heated to a temperature of 105° F. or more, to avoid burns. Also, prior warming covers indiscriminately warm the limbs along with other areas, but heating the limbs of a significantly hypothermic person can release cold pooled blood into the core circulation that can then lead to serious circulatory problems in some patients. Finally, the body's capacity to take up externally applied heat varies considerably from one body surface locale to another. These important factors argue for selective heating of different body regions while avoiding or relatively reducing e.g. limb warming, a major departure from the prior art of passive or even active warming of a victim of trauma-induced or direct (e.g., cold exposure) hypothermia.